Massa Will Resign Monday as Planned

Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will follow through with his resignation, scheduled to take effect at 5 p.m. Monday, his chief of staff confirmed.

Massa suggested to a New York radio station on Sunday that he could rescind his resignation after asserting that an ethics investigation into allegations that he sexually harassed an aide may have been orchestrated by Democratic leaders to get him out of office before the health care vote.

“The comments on the radio came from constituents calling in, saying, ‘You should rescind.’ And that’s how that fire got fed. He addressed them by thanking them for the comments, but the resignation is still effective,” Massa Chief of Staff Joseph Racalto said in an interview outside the New York Democrat’s office in the Longworth House Office Building.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/43924-1.html

Massa Implicates Emanuel, Dem Leaders

Embattled Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) lashed out in an emotional radio appearance Sunday, accusing Dem leaders of what he suggested was an orchestrated campaign to force his resignation.

"There's a reason that this has all happened, frankly one that I had not realized," Massa said on WKPQ radio on Sunday. "Mine is now the deciding vote on the health care bill, and this administration and this House leadership have said, quote unquote, they will stop at nothing to pass this health care bill. And now they've gotten rid of me and it'll pass."

Massa addressed rumors circulating on blogs about his personal behavior, including incidents during an informal Navy ceremony in '83 on the USS New Jersey and one that occurred in a state room later during his Navy career. He insisted he had done nothing uncommon, insisting his sin was foul language.

A complaint before the House ethics committee, he said, stemmed from a wedding Massa attended over New Years, when he made an inappropriate comment to an aide, according to Roll Call, which first reported the radio program.

Massa maintained his comments were inappropriate, but he blamed "political correctness" and accused Dems of a setup. Massa voted against health care legislation in Nov., and he has not been a reliable vote for Dem leadership. That, he said, has put a target on his back.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2010/03/massa_implicate.php

U.S.-Born al Qaeda Arrest News Incorrect

Confusion Over Militant's Identity Sparked Reports of Gadahn Arrest; Some Media Say It is Another U.S.-Born Te

(CBS)  Last Updated 5:25 p.m. ET

An "important Taliban militant" was arrested today in Pakistan. But that is where the confusion started.

Earlier it was reported by Pakistani media that intelligence agents had arrested Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al Qaeda, in an operation in the southern city of Karachi.

It was further reported by the Associated Press and Reuters that Gadahn had been arrested, sourcing security officials.

CBS News was told by sources in the Pakistan government that it was Gadahn, even after U.S. officials refused to confirm it was the California native for whom a $1 million reward has been posted.

Now, CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad writes that earlier reports the detained individual was Gadahn proved false. According to a Pakistan security official who spoke with CBS News on condition of anonymity, the arrested individual is in fact "a Taliban militant leader who is known as Abu Yahya."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/07/world/main6275953.shtml

Update: Ed Morrissey says on CNN at 6pm ET, they reported that a "senior Pakistani government official" says it is definitely Gadahn.

Graham Signals KSM Trial Reversal Could Clear Way for Gitmo Closure

FOXNews.com

Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that he would help the White House convince his fellow Republicans to support closing Guantanamo Bay if President Obama reverses course and sends the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind and his co-conspirators to military tribunals.

The South Carolina Republican is considered to be a key player in the administration's strategy to close the detainee camp at Guantanamo. He supports shuttering the facility but opposes trying the alleged architects of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in civilian court. 

He acknowledged Sunday that he's willing to play ball with the White House on Guantanamo, provided it gives him what he wants on the terror trials. 

"I don't believe Khalid Sheikh Mohammed robbed a liquor store. He's the mastermind of 9/11. ... If he's not an enemy combatant, who would be?" Graham told CBS' "Face the Nation." 

He suggested that using the tribunals for such high-profile terror suspects would go a long way toward easing opposition from the right to closing Guantanamo and sending its detainees to U.S. soil. 

"I can't do it by myself. But I think if we could get Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators of 9/11 back in the military commission, it would go down well with the public," Graham said.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/07/graham-signals-ksm-trial-reversal-clear-way-gitmo-closure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+foxnews%252Flatest+%2528Text+-+Latest+Headlines%2529

Here are some photos of Iraqis going to the polls. Via HotAirPundit:

Close Associate of Usama bin Laden Arrested in Pakistan

Sunday, March 07, 2010

Developing: Abu Yahya Azam, a close associate of Usama bin Laden, was arrested in Karachi Sunday and has been taken into custody, Fox News confirms.

Azam is believed to be Egyptian-American.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588322,00.html

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani officials: Adam Gadahn, the American-born spokesman for al-Qaida, has been arrested.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E9UQJ00&show_article=1

Christmas Day terror plot plane would have landed safely even if 'underpants' bomb had blown up

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 4:55 PM on 05th March 2010

A bomb on board a U.S. Christmas Day flight would have failed to bring the plane down even if it had been detonated successfully, a new test explosion suggests.

A controlled blast on a Boeing 747, using the same explosives that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of smuggling on board, failed to burst the fuselage.

It means, had the bomb exploded on December 25, Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit would have successfully landed .

However, experts said the alleged Islamist terrorist and the passenger next to him would have died, while other passengers would have suffered ruptured ear drums.

Mr Abdulmutallab, 23, who is accused of sewing explosives into his underpants and using a syringe to detonate it, denies attempting to murder 289 people.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1255722/Test-explosion-shows-Christmas-Day-flight-landed-bomb-detonated.html

Levin Repays Property Tax Credit

Newly anointed House Ways and Means Chairman Sander Levin (D-Mich.) repaid a Maryland property-tax credit Friday that he should not have received, his office confirmed.

Levin, who owns a home in Chevy Chase, Md., received a $690 credit on his most recent property tax bill, the result of Montgomery County program that provided one-time credits to residential property owners in the 2009-10 tax year.

Levin, who purchased the home in 1977, received the tax credit although it was intended for only “owner-occupied” properties, and he does not live in the home. The credit reduced his tax bill to just under $9,500.

“This is not a tax credit that Rep. Levin applied for and in an abundance of caution he has paid the full amount to Montgomery County to correct their mistake,” Levin Chief of Staff Hilarie Chambers wrote in an e-mail Friday.

Chambers said the Michigan lawmaker moved out of the home in September 2008, following the death of his wife. His daughter and her family now occupy the home, and he stays at a Silver Spring condominium owned by his daughter when he is in the Washington, D.C. area.

Levin repaid the credit Friday, Chambers said, after being contacted by Roll Call.

http://www.rollcall.com/news/43910-1.html

"Stop messing with Texas!" That was the message Gov. Rick Perry bellowed on election night as he celebrated his victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican primary for governor. In his reference to Texas' anti-littering slogan, Perry was making a point applicable to national as well as Texas politics and addressed to Democratic politicians as well as Republicans.

His point was that the big-government policies of the Obama administration and Democratic congressional leaders are resented and fiercely opposed not just because of their dire fiscal effects but also as an intrusion on voters' independence and ability to make decisions for themselves.

No one would include Perry on a list of serious presidential candidates, including himself, even in the flush of victory. But in his 10 years as governor, the longest in the state's history, Texas has been teaching some lessons to which the rest of the nation should pay heed.

They are lessons that are particularly vivid when you contrast Texas, the nation's second most populous state, with the most populous, California. Both were once Mexican territory, secured for the United States in the 1840s. Both have grown prodigiously over the past half-century. Both have populations that today are about one-third Hispanic.

But they differ vividly in public policy and in their economic progress -- or lack of it -- over the last decade. California has gone in for big government in a big way. Democrats hold big margins in the legislature largely because affluent voters in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay area favor their liberal positions on cultural issues.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/Low-tax-Texas-beats-big-government-California-86681467.html

Deadly Blasts Shake Baghdad as Iraqis Vote

Sunday, March 07, 2010

BAGHDAD —  Iraqis voted Sunday in an election testing the mettle of the country's still-fragile democracy as insurgents killed 25 people across the Iraq, unleashing a barrage of mortars intent on disrupting the historic day.

About 19 million Iraqis are eligible to vote for who will lead the country after U.S. forces pull out, in an election that will determine whether Iraq can overcome the jagged sectarian divisions that have defined it since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Insurgents who vowed to disrupt the elections — which they see as validating the Shiite-led government and the U.S. occupation — launched a spate of attacks as polls opened across the city and country.

At least 14 people died in northeastern Baghdad after an explosion leveled a building, and mortar attacks in western Baghdad killed seven people in two different neighborhoods, police and hospital officials said.

In Baghdad's northeast Hurriyah neighborhood, where mosque loudspeakers exhorted people to vote as "arrows to the enemies' chest," three people were killed when someone threw a hand grenade at a crowd heading to the polls, said police and hospital officials.

In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, a bomb inside a polling center killed a policeman, said Iraqi Army Col. Abdul Hussein. There were also explosions elsewhere in the country, but no further reports of fatalities.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,588273,00.html